Is being a "jack of all trades" beneficial for video business owners? EP #134 - Den Lennie

Hello, guys, it's Dan Lanney here, host of the how to Scale a Video Business podcast, coming to you this week with another solo episode.

So I wanted to start today and just get straight into it by actually talking about my clients who have been quite literally smashing it recently. And I want to just pay respect to those guys who are just getting so stuck into their business. It absolutely fills my cup when I hear their results, which I want to share with you just in a minute. Now, none of this comes easy. There is no shortcut. But these guys have something very unique about their approach.

So let's get straight into it. I want to just talk a bit about the fact that.

In an environment out there.

Where.

The news media would have you believe, there's nothing but doom and confusion. And I see a lot of people, you know.

Writing on their timelines on their walls. You know, things are really tough out there. I talked to a lot of people reaching out on LinkedIn and there seems to be a real mix of people who are really struggling and those who are doing okay. And you gotta ask yourself a question. What is the difference? What are people doing differently that when a certain section of the society that we're talking about, filmmakers, videographers, are saying there's no work, and yet there's others who are saying we've never been busier. And so, you know, I'm experiencing a lot more of the latter, a lot more. Certainly members of the video business accelerator are saying we're getting busy and getting busier. And there's definitely a correlation, correlation between the time in the trenches actually getting your shit together and getting the results. And it's interesting, you know, I've just been going through. We've been rebuilding our website just now working with a top copywriter and an amazing web company in Melbourne. And we're doing a timeline of. Of my, my kind of About Me page. And we're going all the way back to. Gosh, where are we? We're right back to 1990. 1990, in fact. So almost. Gosh, that's 30 years. Christ, it just struck me, almost 30 years. So, yeah, 1990 is when I first started university. And I'm looking back at this timeline and it's taught me a few things about how careers and businesses ebb and flow. And, you know, when we start something, we are unrealistic perhaps about how quickly we can get the result. And in actual fact, if you just got stuck into more of the kind of nuts and bolts systemization, getting clear on who you want to work with, Getting a clear marketing strategy together, getting a marketing equation together and actually disciplined, you know, find the discipline to actually go out and. And, you know, just do the work that has to be done to get your marketing message right and then get it out in front of the right people. There's something called the mere exposure effect, which is it's the more times someone is exposed to your product, brand or service, the more trust they build. And so the current numbers are somewhere around the region of, you know.

15 to 18 points of contact is what a client needs to see and experience with your product, brand or service before they feel like they can trust you. And so, you know, often what happens is we give up too quickly when we're actually reaching out to prospects. And, you know, I mentioned my clients earlier. I'm going to call them out and pay real credit to them here because Caleb down in Hebron Films.

In Bendigo doubled his revenue last month. You know, had a massive month, and they were growing and scaling pretty well, but they doubled their revenue in one month. So much so they need to now go and take on a business development manager or a producer they're currently looking to hire because they've got so much demand and they're in a small country town and, you know, Victoria was in lockdown for 11 weeks. You know, Pat, who's been on the show, had a massive month, got a, you know, a $30,000 check come in the door for a client project. Stas had another one $35,000 check with another one. On.

Increasingly hearing stories, you know, of. Of members who are, you know, back up to where they were before all the craziness. And it's not that. Not everyone's doing like that, you know, because there's people at different stages of the journey. But when I, when I look at why these members are having such solid months, it's mindset they are, they're following the system. It's a proven system or video business.

They're following the system, they're doing the work, and they just don't give up. And I'm looking over my own timeline and thinking, well, you know, gosh, it's, you know, it's a career almost 30 years, and I was looking at different stages of my life and things that were happening and, you know, there are definitely peaks and troughs. There are, there are years where things just go crazy.

You know, back in 2009, I quit my job, remortgaged my house and set F Stop Academy up for two reasons. One, to help video producers, you know, embrace the new world of DSLRs and filmmaking. But also I didn't want to be employed anymore. I decided I wanted to give it a go and I also wanted to move to Australia. So we started thinking about that way back then. 2009, we created Create the Film Look DVDs with Philip Blume, with Dan Chung, with Drew Gardner, other other products that we made. I made plenty of DVD downloads, courses myself, how to sh interviews, video lighting for beginners, etc. And then it was 2012 when we had the start of a really big year because Sony asked us to get involved in the FS100. We helped design that camera. We shot the world's first ever music video on it. Took part in the Great Camera Revenge of the Great Camera shootout alongside Mick Jones at Zacuto Kessler in Chicago. Got to meet Haskell Wexler and Janusz Kaminski. And we also filmed Duran Duran that year, Andrea Corp. And Cristiano Ronaldo. So it was a hell of a year. Like one year became crazy. 2013 also a big year. Sony hired us to make Leboms with Bruce Logan, ASC. We also helped launch the FS700 camera. And I spoke in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong. Did some tour dates with Robbie Williams.

And we also made Escape for zeiss. So again, 2012 and 2013 were crazy busy years. But you know, it hadn't always been like that. And that's really what taught me about the discipline required when running a business. It's just so hard. It's so hard. You know, you're always having to.

Respond to something and no matter your greatest plans might be, you know, I've been on today. I've been looking at finding images for my new website for this one page. But I've had to deal with a lot of other stuff that's come in. We're buying a house just now and there's a lot of finance stuff we got deal with. And so there's always disruption. And so in order for you to be able to achieve your outcomes despite disruption, you need systems. You have to have a system in place. You have to have a default diary. You have to plan strategically what it is you're looking to achieve. Because there is only so many hours in the day. And I'm fortunate I've got a team so I can pass stuff onto the team, but the team still need my attention, you know, so there's, there's, there's always kind of that balance between doing the work and being strategic and the being strategic part can be challenging. And I've got to say, when I was running F Stop Academy, back in the early days, it was really hard. You know, I mean, we had a couple of really big years. It wasn't a small start when we started with the DVDs, but, you know, 2009, 2011 was very busy, but 2012, 2013, we really started to see some huge results.

And then in 2014, that's when I wrote the book Business for Filmmakers. And, you know, there's so much disruption between 2009 and probably 2015, 2016 that, you know, we'd meet ourselves coming backwards. You know, what we. What we'd done last year wasn't working anymore. You know, we started with DVDs, and a year later we couldn't give the DVDs away. Then we went digital downloads, and then we couldn't give them away. So there's never been a more disruptive time in our industry, I don't believe. But where does that leave you as a video business owner? Because, you know, coming back to the theme of today's session, which is, you know, why is it some filmmakers are smashing it out the park and others are kicking around going, I can't get any work. Well, I mean, I think the main reason is a lack of focus. All of the businesses I've referred to are specialists. They specialize in one area. And that focus on one area is what helps them to become experts, become authorities in their space. And when you're an authority in your space, then you get consistent results. And the other challenges that I see with a lot of businesses is.

If you keep dabbling in things, if you keep trying to figure out solutions and avoid the hard work, then you're always going to struggle. And the hard work I'm talking about, you know, marketing. I'm talking about reaching out to businesses and making yourself, you know, making them, making yourself aware to them. You know, it's a form of cold outreach, but we have process for that in the group. We use LinkedIn. It's very easy to find the right people. We've got connection scripts, and we help people to, you know, make those initial connections. And we've seen some incredible results with that technique. But it's not just one pillar of marketing. You've got to have multiple pillars of marketing. And that's the challenging part, I think, for creatives is we often think it's just about doing one thing and fingers crossed, the formal ring. To build a consistent and viable business, you must have multiple marketing channels. So you might be doing some Facebook ads, you might be running some Google Ads, you might be doing some SEO, you might be doing some cold outreach, you might be writing articles in trade press for your, you're given a market. You certainly want to be showing video footage in your channel of the work that you do. Because if you want a client to drop tens of thousands of pounds or dollars a euro on a video and you're not using video yourself, don't you think maybe there's a disconnect? And I think that's something that I really want to kind of implore you to consider, is that, you know, it's, it's, it's not always about just doing one thing. You have to do multiple things. And, and that's why we've got our, our growth accelerators. You know, it's about, it's about understanding clearly what you want first and foremost, getting super clear on that and then deciding, you know, who do you want to work with? Because you do get to choose. This is, this is something that a lot of filmmakers who are struggling.

Because they can't wrap their head around this, and that is, you get to choose who you work with. And I just don't think it's feasible to be a jack of all trades anymore and try and service everyone. There's just too much competition. And so where we're seeing people having the greatest results are when they focus on a specialism, when they focus on a niche or an area. And from a marketing perspective, I'm not saying you don't have, you can't do work for other clients. It's making your marketing message nice and clear so that there's one message going out to your market that you are the experts in this area. So Pat, for example, who was on the show a couple of months ago, he focuses largely on healthcare. Now. He does other things. He does education, he does government and corporate and agency work. But 80% of his business is in the healthcare space. And so he's dug down deeper into healthcare and now talks about public health, private health, medical devices, you know, drugs, administrations, you name it, they do everything. And so what happens is people in that sector then start to know Path A as being the guys to go to for anything medical because they understand the bureaucracy, they understand the language, they understand compliance. And so when, when that client is hiring path 8, there is less risk than hiring someone who's new. And so when you become a specialist, you know, you automatically differentiate yourself. You know, I run a coaching business specifically for video production companies. We don't Take sound recorders. We don't take, you know, freelance cameramen. We don't take artists or graphic designers. We only work with videographers, with people who run a company. And that is very, very niche. But all of our members tell me that the reason they love it is because it's so niche. It's because all we do is live and breathe and talk video production, how to scale a video business, you know, what, what are the challenges you're having? So we'll be going to the coaching call this week and we've talked about, you know, you know, how to implement the LinkedIn strategy. You know, what, what are the obstacles people are having? And people have been kind of questioning, you know, oh, this, this message, is this the most appropriate message given the circumstance. And so we're about that openly. And that is why the coaching program, we call it a mastermind, is because there was one thing to learn the information, it's a totally other thing to actually implement and come across other problems, other challenges. And so, you know, we have this group environment where you can, you can submit something and we'll look at it and we'll help you cultivate your offer and cultivate your message in a way that resonates with your target market. And that's something that's very, very important because when you try and figure this stuff out in own, you're kind of firing blind. So coming back to our accelerators, you know, once you know who you're dealing with, you then going to work out, what is your message to that market, what is the offer? How are you offering a different approach to solving a problem? And, and how are you helping that client solve their problems? And from there it's like, okay, well now how do we attract people into the business? What kind of marketing channels are you going to use? And how do you nurture those people from, you know, vaguely interested to becoming a prospect? Someone who's actually actively looking to invest in a video production service. Once you get to that stage, you've got to know how to sell. You've got to know how to kind of ask the right sorts of questions so that you can actively, you know, investigate and dig around and find out what that person really actually needs.

Because if you don't do that, you'll be like, oh, do you want a video? It's like, you've got to really dig deep. In fact, Grant, one of our clients in Melbourne, used our new sales script just recently and he said, oh, I probably made 30% more on the deal because I asked those questions. And so, you know, that's just one example that once you've got that client on board, you've then got to obviously fulfill the production. And that's probably the bit that, that most people are pretty okay with. But.

You know, how do you do that at scale? What happens when you get more than one job? Well, you need systems, you need a process. And we're actually releasing in January a brand new how to run a video business system. And we've been doing it in part to now. We've actually sat down with one of our clients and we've actually gone through and worked out what are the exact steps you need to need to run a video production business and scale it to multiple six figures profit. So we'll be releasing that in January. But what we're doing in the meantime is still working on the systems that you need. And we've got systems that you need to, to get, to get started. Once you've got the systems in place, then you can start to scale, then you can start to run multiple productions without you needing to be there. And then you move more into a kind of, a kind of management role in some ways. But, but don't have that. I don't want that to sound like, oh, it's boring. It's actually pretty creative because you're now thinking of more interesting ways to attract clients into your business, more exciting ways to help those clients achieve their results and outcomes. And so you're measuring your systems, you're measuring the effectiveness of your marketing and advertising. You're looking at your sales conversions and you're looking at what revenues are coming in, what cash flow's coming in and how can you scale who do you need next in the business to help you achieve your outcomes?

And then you can focus on looking after clients and making sure they're happy and making sure that repeat business is happy. You know, one of our other clients in Melbourne has been running for quite some time and he has probably 30 or 40 different clients and now is in a position where they don't really need to do much in the way of cold outreach. You know, there's enough business with them existing clients that they're always busy. And so from there it's kind of background to the top again. It's like, okay, once you're at that position, what's the next sector you want to go into? Or how do you want to scale the business? Do you want to scale back? Do you want to bring someone in to run the business for you? Or do you want to, you know, just, just, just, just focus on having more quality time with your family. And that is really our sole motivation within the video business. Accelerators like, you get to choose what success looks like to you. If you want to make a million bucks, we've got the process to do that. But if you want to just kind of, you know, make a few hundred thousand a year and only work two or three days a week, we have a system for that as well. The key thing I want you to think about is what do you want? What are you interested in?

And how are you currently tracking? And how are you currently tracking and how are you going to get to that next stage? What do you need to do?

And what is stopping you from achieving that on your own? Because it's very hard to scale a video business on your own without support.

What we've seen with our clients is that members of this community win together because they are committed. They're on calls every week, an enormous library of training, and they get support. So, yeah, have a think about what it is you want from your business and ask yourself the question, are you really going to achieve it on your own? Or what would happen if you got some support? All right, guys, that's it for me this week. I'll talk to you soon.

You've been listening to the how to Scale a Video Business podcast with me, your host, Den Lenny. If you're a video business owner who's hit a ceiling and we benefit from mentorship, support and coaching, then check out how you can work with me over@denlenny.com. don't forget to subscribe and rate the show over on itunes. And we'd really appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a review. And don't forget to share if you feel you've gotten value from this episode and you think it would be useful for other filmmakers, you know, then please do me a massive favor and share it on social media and in groups that you might be in. See you next week.